Add Comment Field and List on Overview Page
I'd like administrators to have the ability to leave comments on the overview page that shows the application process status, added documents and follow-ups etc. It's great to have all that info in one place. Being able to leave comments there that would be visible at the bottom of the page would be helpful in many respects. It would allow for explanations of due date changes, notes on follow ups needed, all sorts of heads-up type info and anything that might be helpful for someone looking for an overview of the project.
Idea posted August 16, 2011 by Melissa Wheaton, Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities
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Ideas commented
I love the comment field that is viewable only to staff/applicants - but I wish that the checkbox "Make Viewable to Applicant" was more explicit - so that we didn't have to test or search to figure out who can see what.
Perhaps two radio button options:
(filled in by default) Make Viewable to Staff & Reviewers (not Applicants)Make Viewable to Staff & Applicants (not Reviewers)
posted September 6, 2013 by Mary Giraulo, United Arts of Central Florida -
Chris Dahl commented
Hi Sarah,
That's a really timely observation. We're actually working on an enhancement that will allow you to mark the inline (per question) comments as viewable by the applicant or not. By default, these comments will NOT be visible to the applicant, but you will be able to change that on a comment-by-comment basis. And these comments - because they are between the administrator and applicant - will not be viewable by reviewers.
To be clear, the larger comment box (labeled Decision Comment) won't be part of this. That "decision comment" functionality is going to be modified a bit so that those types of comments are more easily viewed and updated together as part of the overall grant request.
This new functionality is slated to be included in our 3.4.0 release which should go into our Demo environment in late March. It will apply to LOIs, Applications, and Follow-up forms.
Thanks for the suggestion and I look forward to hearing your feedback.
posted February 24, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
I’m reviewing our quarterly reports in Foundant and using the “Follow up Not Complete” function to put the reports back in draft mode for the orgs to correct. I’ve checked on the applicant side and the comments I’ve made does not show up on their view. Is there a way for them to have access to view these comments? The applicants will never be able to see the comments even if its’ in Follow Up Complete mode right? What I have to do now is send each of them an email stating all the corrections that have to be made and asking them to resubmit. So, we are still chasing them down w email tags. My hope is for them to just log in to their accounts, view my comments for each of the sections, make corrections, resubmit and then I check Follow Up Complete. Thank you!
posted February 22, 2013 by Sarah Chau, Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi Anela,
We have a rough spec for improving the comment handling put together. As part of our 2013 planning, we have a bit to figure out in terms of product development priorities, but I should have a better idea where this will fit soon. We'll also discuss the internal follow-up option and see if there's anything we can do there in the short-term.
Thanks for checking in.
posted January 14, 2013 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
Hi, Chris:
Are there any updates on this request? Our ED and program officers just asked me the same thing - they would like to be able to include notes/comments to each specicfic grant rather than to the general organziation page. I also saw another suggestion that would work for us - such as using the "Grant follow-up" section to also be an internal follow up page - i.e. not assigning it to the applicant, but to the administrator or program officer.
posted January 3, 2013 by Anela Shimizu, Hau'oli Mau Loa Foundation
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi Kathryn,
Thanks for the feedback. And yes, I agree that keeping application-specific comments on the OrganizationView page would become unwieldy. The comment area on that page was intended for general comments and notes about the Organization (i.e. if they are doing a good job or if there are concerns with new personnel or what have you). And as we noted above, at some point we will be making the ApplicantProcessView.aspx page a more intuitive and functional place for managing application-specific comments.
In terms of the challenge of keeping all communication information with a grantee together ... I think the improvments for comment-handling in the ApplicantProcessView page should address the need to "more simply note voice or extraneous email conversations relative to a specific grant." In regard to automatically capturing emails from the system ... a number of folks at the Summit expressed the same need, so we spent some time looking into it and now we are in the process of finalizing a product specification for this. When it's done, I'll try to figure out the best way to get some user feedback on it before we begin implementing it. If nothing else, I could email a copy of it to you for some feedback. As I expressed at the Summit, that's not to say we will necessarily be able to incorporate all the feedback, but it could definitely help us identify deficiencies in our design before we actually start working on things.
posted September 27, 2012 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
Hi Chris,
Thanks for including the url identifier. You've got it right - if we can add comments to that "ApplicantProcessView" page, I'd want to know they are there. Keeping them all on the"OrganizationView" page will become unweildy as many applicants apply for multiple grants each year and year after year.
We're still struggling with how to keep all communication info with a grantee together. It would be very helpful to be able to automatically capture our Foundant generated-emails to the application/grants page (Even as Documents - since we upload them); And more simply note voice or extraneous email conversations relative to a specific grant. This is a big problem for us.
Thank you all for soliciting suggestions from Users.
posted August 9, 2012 by Kathryn Treanor, Dietel Partners, LLC
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi Kathryn,
When you ask about "a check box on the main Organization Page," I'm not quite following. You can get to the "grant overview" page (I think that's the page I refer to as Applicant Process overview page - the URL for the page I'm thinking of contains "ApplicantProcessView.aspx") by clicking on the project name from the "Organization Application and Grant History" list on the Organization page. Was there something else you had in mind, or did you just want a visual indicator that a specific Applicant Process has comments?
In regard to the tagging of comments by type/stage ... I think that's an interesting concept. At this point, it's a lower priority than the first step of cleaning up the comments and making them more easily viewable, but it's something worthy of consideration as we move forward.
posted August 6, 2012 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
That would be very helpful. It might also be userful - as Raymond suggested - to be able to tag the comment to a particular part of the application process, i.e. Application / or Follow-UP / or even Communications - which might help provide a place to keep grantee communications
Any chance there could be a check box on the main Organization Page that says - "see Grant overview page for comments"? As we transition into a new way of thinking about Comments, that might help us know where they are.
Thanks for working on this, folks.
posted July 20, 2012 by Kathryn Treanor, Dietel Partners, LLC
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Chris Dahl commented
Hi Melissa and Kathryn,
Thanks for the feedback. We've recognized there is some pain around comments. One thing we are considering - and I think this is what you are saying, Melissa - is to have comments for the Application Process (the request an applicant submits that may include an LOI, application, and follow-up) work more like the comments do for the Organizations. Basically, all the comments for an Application Process would be available on the overview page (and could be edited / deleted as need be). The thought is that this would be more intuitive and provide a bit more flexibility.
Any thoughts on this approach?
posted July 20, 2012 by Chris Dahl, Foundant Technologies
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Ideas commented
We would love to be able to attach Comments to specific grants. That way we could mark the grants for which we DON'T need a Follow-Up. Or perhaps the Comment Field attached to Folow-Ups could be unlocked and useable whether a follow-up is scheduled or not? Thank you.
posted July 16, 2012 by Kathryn Treanor, Dietel Partners, LLC
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Ideas commented
Thank for bringing up comments! We have various specialized comment areas liberally sprinkled throughout GLM. I am concerned that it may be confusing and not nearly as helpful as it could be. I have been leaning towards a single comment area where perhaps one could tag or select a pre-defined comment type. Maybe it would even be pre-selected base on context. That way, folks could see all the comments for a particular grant request in one central location.
I encourage others to comment on comments in GLM! Thank you.
posted August 19, 2011 by Raymond Burket, Foundant Technologies